Jake Porter's blog

Barr questions McCain continuing Bush's war policy with Iraq and goes after the Republican and Democratic failed economic plans that will have a disastrous impact on our country in just a few decades.

Maybe instead of attacking earmarks, John McCain will start to aggressively attack the long term issues this nation will face which were in large part created by the federal government continually running a huge deficit and refusing to address the issues of Social Security and Medicare.

Long-term projections from nonpartisan government analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) show that current federal budget policies are unsustainable. The bottom line is stark. Unless we change course, widening federal deficits will eventually starve the economy of critical savings and shortchange investments for our children's future well being. No country can enjoy sustained living standard growth without investing, and no country can sustain high investment for long without saving.

The problem with deficits is that they soak up national savings and crowd out productive investment. Since America's savings pool is shallow, the impact of large deficits is especially harmful. The U.S. net national savings rate is already low both relative to other developed nations and to our own history. Current fiscal policies are due to push net national savings still lower, ultimately driving it beneath zero.

Let's hope that we don't have to suffer a fiscal and economic crack up before changing direction. The time to act is now, while people still have time to adjust and prepare--not ten years from now, when the trade-offs will be all the more painful. This is the last decade before the age wave rolls over the budget. Our elected leaders should make sure it's not a lost decade.

Source: The Concord Coalition

I had a great time at the Libertarian National Convention talking with Mike and the Gravel campaign staff. I am glad to have them in the party and look forward to working with them in the future.

Hat Tip: Liberty Maven

I have my disagreements with Bob Barr, but I would like to remind everyone that in 2004 Bob Barr did assist the Libertarian Party by supporting Michael Badnarik's Libertarian campaign for President.

He won't vote for Bush. But he won't vote for John Kerry, either. "I have serious questions about both presidential candidates," he said.

Does that mean he's voting Libertarian?

"Yep," Barr said Thursday. That would be Michael Badnarik.

It's not unexpected. Barr spoke at the Libertarian national convention in Atlanta in May. Libertarians note that Barr has invited Joseph Seehusen, the party's executive director, to be a guest on his radio program two days before the presidential election.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Bush the Rancher has been roping in the hard conservatives who have strayed over issues such as the deficit, the Patriot Act, even the war in Iraq. On Tuesday, Pat Buchanan gave his blessing, however unenthusiastic, to Bush.

"A presidential election is a Hatfield-McCoy thing, a tribal affair. No matter the quarrels inside your family, when the shooting starts, you come home to your own," Buchanan writes in American Conservative magazine.

Barr noted Buchanan's decision to be lassoed. "I was surprised," he said. "I was disappointed."

The Patriot Act isn't Barr's sole disagreement with the Bush administration. But it's the most emblematic. "Conservatives of all people ought to stand up for the belief that there needs to be limits on executive power. [The Bush administration] says that terror trumps everything. To me, nothing should trump the Bill of Rights."

Barr doesn't like the way the Patriot Act whittles away at the "probable cause" standard that justifies government snooping on citizens. He doesn't like the circumventing of judges via "administrative subpoenas."

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